You might think that YouTube is not relevant to your homewares store but actually, YouTube is a fantastic way to drive traffic to your website. The aim is to add something of value to the community you serve. So, think about who your main audience is, if you sell a lot to interior designers then think about a video you could create that shows them how to decorate with your homewares products. Let’s take record players as an example. Turntables is an old trend that is gathering a lot of popularity in recent months. If you had a store that sold record players, you could use YouTube to target your potential audience. Your videos should add value so in this example you could complete videos on how to clean your turntable or how to care for your old records. Or, you could have demo videos on how to set up and start using your record player, the options are endless!

About YouTube

Today, there are over 1 billion unique visitors to YouTube each month who watch over 6 billion hours of video in total. With a presence in over 60 countries, this social media website has become a crucial strategic element for advertising your website on the Internet. Below, I’ll be explaining to you how to set up a basic YouTube account and how to use it effectively to increase traffic to your website.

Setting Up a Successful Youtube Account

First, to use YouTube you must have a Google account so if you don’t currently have one then you need to set one up.

Creating a successful, popular and useful YouTube account is not as difficult as it may seem. You just have to work on the following elements:

A good account name. The name of your account should be either be your own name, your brand name, or include a keyword of your niche market. So you want to be adding homewares, interior decorating or home décor to yourname

→ For example, Home Design Lovers at http://homedesignlovers.com/ chose to name their YouTube channel “DIY Home” {link} in order to optimize their search engine results, as many people search on YouTube for DIY ideas.

Your channel. Your channel should catch viewers’ eyes as soon as they find it. The best way to do this is to create an eye-catching banner for your YouTube channel and to include a Featured Video that plays instantly as a viewer opens your page. Featured videos should let your viewers know exactly what to expect from you. In the context of this banner, make sure you let them know instantly that you are in the homewares sector.

Regular uploads. Regularly uploading videos of top quality is essential to gaining subscribers as people will most likely want to subscribe to a channel that constantly provides them with new and interesting information.

Driving Traffic to Your Website with YouTube

But a successful YouTube channel is not all it takes. You need to now find ways to transfer your YouTube traffic to your website. You want people to watch your videos and then click through to your home décor store.

You can guide viewers and subscribers to your website in two main ways on YouTube.

The first way is to simply add your website link to your YouTube channel. There are three main places you can place your website link:

Your channel banner. YouTube makes it very easy to do add links as you simply have to head over to your banner, click on “Edit Links” and add the links you want!

The video description box. We’ve already seen that the description box is useful for effectively tagging your videos but it’s also useful to leave your website link at the top of your description box. This will place it in an easy place for subscribers and viewers to locate it.

Within the video. It is also possible to link your website to your video in a few different ways:

By associating your website to your YouTube channel and creating an associated website annotation. You can do this by going to your account settings and once your website is verified, add a website annotation to your video on your video manager.

By creating an overlay to link to your website. An overlay is a small banner located at the bottom the video. To activate this feature, you will have to sign up and create your own ad.

By mentioning it at the beginning and the end of your videos. Simply reminding your viewers of your website can go a long way.

However, just having the link there does not necessarily mean people will visit your website. What you need to get people from your videos to your website is to generate a call to action. When people see your videos they should be told what they need to do (i.e. go to your website), how they can do it (i.e. clicking on the various links you have provided), and why they should do it (i.e. “to get a discount on all lamps”).

Let’s Wrap It Up

With all this information, let’s summarize things a bit to simplify. In order to drive traffic to your website using YouTube, you need to:

Set up a successful YouTube channel;

Link up your website to as many places as possible on your YouTube channel and videos; and

Create a clear call to action to guide your viewers from your videos to your website.

If you provide people with quality information and give them a useful reason to check out your website, the traffic will flow naturally!

Google+ is a great internet marketing tool that is geared towards businesses to increase their customer base. Google+ not only allows you to create your Google+ page, but a business page as well. All your information is connected together for more exposure on the internet. Utilizing Google+ will bring customers to your page when they are using Googles search engine, which is one of the largest in the world.

Google + and your Home Décor Store

When it comes to the home décor industry, Google + is particularly good for a number of reasons. First, just merely having a Google + page and linking it to your store can help you improve your rankings. If you look at this site that sells picnic rugs, for example, you will see that thiei Google + page is very active and it is telling Google that this store is important.

Second, the Google + page itself can rank, effectively giving you a second channel for customers to find you. Third, home décor and interior design is an extremely visual niche area. Google + allows for a great deal of space for images and videos to you to display new products, interior design techniques, ‘how too’ videos etc. For example, if you are an online homewares store and you have a new collection of pillows that you can’t wait to get front of your customers, take a few moments to photograph them, add them to your Google + page and send them out to all your adoring fans.

Guidelines and Benefits

Google+ Business Page

Your business page on Google+ is your hub within Googles network and connects all your business entities that are online together. So if you have multiple homewares stores, for example, a store for wall clocks, one selling cushions and another that sells coffee tables, this is the place to link them all together

Google+ Badge

Profile Badge makes it easier for customers to find you on Google+.

Page Badge helps you consolidate your website and your Google+ pages.

Community Badge assists potential customers in finding your community and participating together.

Places for Business

When using this enhancement your customers can view your location(s) on maps and hours of operation. This allows your customers to find your store and it will show up as a pin on Google Maps,

The +1 Button

This button will allow you to monitor the traffic on your website’s pages and increase your search availabilities. Visitors can also recommend content that they find interesting on your site. You might have a tribe of interior designers who all find the same articles interesting, this is a great place for sharing home décor articles, photos and videos.

Social Extensions

Social extensions allow for recommendations and endorsements form users. Utilizing the social extensions will increase your click through rate by 5-10%.

Search Function

This allows you to find people and businesses matching your industry or that may have interest in your product or service. You can also use hashtags to find potential customers as well. Use hashtags for product names such as pillows, clocks and coffee tables, this will help interested people find your products.

Posting Content

Post your deals, announcements, or any attention getting information. Each post will appear on all your followers’ streams and allows your instant interaction with them. Link your post to your blog in one easy step in your Google+ page.

Content Control

With the convenient content control with Google+ you have the option of updating or changing your post at any time. This process is very quick and easy to do without any deleting necessary. You can add titles to your postings with keywords for more searchable results. So if you a launching a new line of homewares, you can post photos of each new item and use hashtags to help your potential customers find them.

Connect using Hangouts

Hangouts allow live events and will also automatically save a recording for YouTube for later review. This is a great tool for demonstrations or interviews. The Hangout connection allows interaction instantly with your followers to answer questions or just have discussions. This is amazing tool for launching a new product or service. Create a monthly Question and Answer segment live. With Google+ Hangouts you can be very creative and entertaining for your audience.

Author Tag

Build your reputation as being very knowledgeable in your industry by adding your author tag to your posts. This helps customers feel comfortable knowing that you are experienced and know the product or service.

You will agree that it makes so much sense to partner your online home décor store with Goggle+. With Google having the world’s largest search engine puts your business in the forefront. Google+ allows you the growth potential and market strategy required in the business world today.

Follow the Leaders

Here are some well-known companies in the homewares niche that utilize Google+ for part of their business marketing:

Target uses Google + to promite their ‘Home’ section

Home and Garden have an excellent Google + page with creative ideas

With Google+ having over 500 million users allows ecommerce sites to grab a portion of the market for their product or service. You can keep your current customers more informed while expanding your customer’s base. One of the keys to marketing is exposure and with Google+ being directly connected to Google there could no better availability to the majority of internet users in the world.

With a new home and fresh, vibrant new content, my new interior design blog is about to launch!

If you’re sick of all the same old content on regular interior design blogs be prepared to be blown away as I bring you all the latest news, tricks, tips, style and advice that is hitting the interior design world right now.

As a proud generation Y’er I have bold ideas about interior design that generally clashes with traditional boring views. I’m not afraid to go against the grain with my advice and it is my peculiar style that has earned me several industry awards and some outstanding contracts with some of the world’s best.

I love to evolve and regenerate frequently with my work and also with my writing. This new blog will pick up where ‘Interior Dezigns’ left off but I’ll be delving more into my edgier side as I double down on hot interior designs for the modern home.

So prepare yourself, save this URL and get ready for a feast of information about to come your way.

I promise it will be special… and I never break my promises.

Interior design is more than just a 'make-over'. It is a representation of a person, their passions, their energy, their personality. I am an artist, a free-thinker, a creative. Join me here as I tear away at the traditional ideas of design in search of a raw, more natural design ethic.